


Astrid: The First Time

by dianasbaby



Category: Gone Series - Michael Grant
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-10
Updated: 2020-10-10
Packaged: 2021-03-08 02:54:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 964
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26928472
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dianasbaby/pseuds/dianasbaby
Summary: Astrid is helping Little Pete with his exercises, when something strange happens.
Kudos: 4





	Astrid: The First Time

**Author's Note:**

  * For [TwinIvoryElephants](https://archiveofourown.org/users/TwinIvoryElephants/gifts).



Pete sat cross-legged on the floor, an assortment of colored balls in front of him on the carpet. Three boxes. Astrid was kneeling next to him, hands in her lap, the perfect picture of sisterly patience.  
“Can you put the balls in the correct box, Pete?”  
Little Pete said nothing, his big blue eyes focussing on the clock on the mantlepiece. Astrid sighed, but she too was distracted – she had gotten her first A in Spanish today. Ms Gonsalves said that her pronunciation wasn’t perfect yet, especially her “R”s.  
“Petey. Can you put the balls in the correct boxes?”

Yet. So that meant she could improve? But she had practiced that speech (with pronunciation help from YouTube) for weeks, as soon as the assignment was issued. She didn’t see how it possibly could have gone better. Ms Gonsalves was one of those teachers who liked reading the class’s marks aloud (“Name and Shame”, she called it, seemingly proud to promote academic competition based off humiliation) and Sofia had been the only one to get an A+. Astrid had been mortified.

“Look, Petey, like this.” She picked up a yellow ball and placed it slowly, deliberately, in the yellow box. “See?”  
Pete responded with a blank stare, shifting his eyes from the clock to Astrid’s face. She sighed and took the ball out of the box, placing it back on the carpet. Today was another slow day, it seemed.

Astrid’s mom walked down the staircase, tennis shoes silent on the carpet, keys jangling in her hand. “I’m off hon, I’ll see you later. Dinner’s on the stove, okay?”  
“Okay, love you.”  
“Love you more.” She kissed Pete on the head, only brushing her lips for the briefest moment on the crown of his head, always careful not too touch too much, too long. “Dad should be back around seven. Don’t forget to do your homework.”  
That was a running joke in the family.  
“Bye mom.” The door shut and the sound of Astrid’s mom’s Range Rover started up. Little Pete turned his head towards the sound of the engine and the tires crunching on gravel. “No, Petey, we’re not going anywhere now. Six o’clock, Pete, time for games. Tick tock.”  
Astrid wondered if she should tell her mom about the A in Spanish. Would she be disappointed? Would she even care?  
“Game time,” said Little Pete, finally. At last he turned his attention to the balls in front of him, acknowledging her existence.  
Her dad would be disappointed, she knew. He would be disappointed in that way that only he could be, never saying it outright, but she would know all the same. But her overall Spanish grade would still be an A+, so would it even matter if she told him or not?

Pete picked up a blue ball and held it over the red box.  
“No, Petey, not –”  
She reached out and grabbed his wrist before he could drop it in the box.  
She grabbed too hard.  
Astrid’s fingers closed around nothing.

She blinked, arm still extended, hand still grasped in a fist. The familiar sight of her bed was in front of her. She registered the wooden floor beneath her knees, so different to the carpeting of a second before. She was in her room, her upstairs bedroom. How was she in her room?  
She stood up quickly but didn’t move, afraid of what could happen. What had just happened? She tried to run through a list of possibilities in her head, her mind working furiously while she showed no outward sign of it, shock paralyzing her in one place. She kept arriving at the same conclusion – she had just somehow spontaneously teleported from the floor of her living room to her upstairs bedroom. The alarm clock on her bedside table told her that no time had passed; the fact that she had been kneeling, arm outstretched just like two seconds ago told her that she hadn’t walked up here and somehow forgotten it.  
The initial shock gave way to fear. How had she unknowingly and in the blink of an eye broken all known laws of physics? It was impossible, it could not be happening. Maybe she was going crazy, except that even as the thought crossed her mind she knew that her self-awareness of the insanity of the situation eliminated the possibility. Crazy people don’t know they’re crazy.  
“Oh, my God. Oh my God,” whispered Astrid. “What the hell?  
A sound from downstairs.  
Then: Petey.  
Astrid ran out of her room and flew down the stairs three at a time, heart beating wildly in her throat.  
“Petey?” she cried.  
Little Pete was still sitting on the carpet, still cross-legged, except now he was picking up the balls and dropping them in their boxes.  
“Petey?” she asked again, trying to calm herself, knowing she shouldn’t be so panicked around him. He ignored her, as usual.  
Astrid’s heart rate refused to calm down. There was no way, no way this was possible, and yet, unless all her senses were lying to her, it had just happened. In the blink of an eye she had gone from the downstairs living room to her upstairs bedroom. The logical side to Astrid wanted desperately to make sense of the phenomenon. Find the cause and effect, the catalyst, see if it was a spontaneous singularity or if it could be induced again.  
The rest of Astrid didn’t give two shits about logic. She knelt again next to her little brother, slowly, carefully.  
“Did you do that Petey?”  
No answer. Hesitantly, she reached out. Laid her fingertips ever so lightly on his wrist. Barely touching.  
Again – “Did you do that, Pete?”  
Little Pete turned his head towards his sister and said, “Yes.”  
Astrid withdrew her hand.


End file.
